1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging control device and an imaging control method for an imaging apparatus and an imaging system capable of capturing a still image or a panorama image by automatically varying an imaging visual field. The present invention also relates to a program capable of embodying the imaging control apparatus and the imaging control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, so-called panorama image capturing is disclosed by which a still image of a wide angle scene is obtained when a user (cameraman) takes a photograph of the image while moving a camera in a substantially horizontal rotation direction. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-88754, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-88811, and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-333396 disclose the techniques regarding the panorama image capturing.
When performing imaging with a digital still camera in a panorama image capturing mode, a user moves the camera in the substantially horizontal rotation direction. At this time, the digital still camera acquires many pieces of still image data and synthesizes the still images at the joins of subject scene to generate panorama image data as a horizontally long still image.
By the panorama image capturing, a wide-angle scene which may not be obtained in normal image capturing can be obtained as one still image.
In the related art, a system performing automatic imaging without a release operation of a user is disclosed.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-100300 discloses a technique in which automatic composition adjustment and automatic recording of captured images obtained by the automatic composition adjustment are performed by an imaging system including a digital still camera and a pan/tilt head electrically varying the digital still camera in a pan/tilt direction.
In the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-100300, a search is made for the subject as a person using, for example, a face detection technique. Specifically, the subject (face of a person) viewed within an image frame is detected while the pan/tilt head rotates the digital still camera in a pan direction.
When the subject within the image frame is detected as the result of the search for the subject, the composition considered to be optimum for the detected form (for example, the number, position, or size of the subject) of the subject within the image frame upon detecting the subject is determined (optimum composition determination). That is, the angles of the pan, tilt, and zoom considered to be optimum are calculated.
When the angles of the pan, tilt, and zoom considered to be optimum are calculated by the optimum composition determination, the angles of the pan, tilt, and zoom are adjusted as target angles (composition adjustment).
After the composition adjustment is completed, the captured image is automatically recorded.
According to the automatic imaging process of the automatic composition adjustment (automatic captured-image recording), the captured image can be recorded automatically with the composition considered to be optimum without any imaging operation performed by the user.